Don't point that social media at me, it might go off.

Today, I presented at the Academy of Marketing Conference, Liverpool.  My (over-crowded) track ‘eMarketing' had much promise in terms of the ‘new', if not ‘unique' applications of social media.

Here ‘social media' equates as Facebook. You have only to glance at the monopolisation of the tweetfall (by myself and one other at the conference) that any additional platform, Twitter included, is on the outer limits of this inclusion or nod towards a fully incorporated communications and marketing strategy.

If this how we are holding things up, I do not see a stable future for marketing as social media.  Which is precisely my point. A Facebook Fan Page, or the incorporation of a Twitter account does not make ‘doing social media'. The audience has been quick to respond.

My take away messages included how eMarketing is MISSING THE MESSAGE.

Marketers in particular must recognise that:

1.     Diversity of consumers and sense of multiplicity.

2.     Connections, like consumer's, are nuanced.

3.     Some consumers minimise exposure to marketing and branded content.

4.     Various risks from ill considered social media campaigns that assume all consumers are the same. Why? Because they are seen to Intrude into spaces consumers think are personal and private.

5.     There is discord: As consumer's are motivated to disconnect. Deliberately isolate themselves from marketing messages, but not socially.